Things I never noticed in the Bible
Judges 13
I remember Samson's father Manoah being dumb in this chapter.
And I remember Samson having some serious moral failings later.
I've just never seen a possible connection between them before.
In Judges 13, God appears to Manoah's wife (she is never named), announces Samson's birth, and instructs her how to raise him. Manoah seems unwilling to believe her and asks God to appear again. God does but says no more to him than He did to her. It's an indirect rebuke: you could have listened to her! After the appearance, their conversation shows her to be the wiser one, spiritually. Manoah was a spiritual dolt.
What I never noticed: Samson did not have a strong spiritual role model for a father. Did that have a direct effect on Samson's later impulsivity, lust, violence, and general lack of self-control? I won't go so far as to assume and assert that, but it IS a warning to the rest of us fathers. Give your sons an example of self-control, and the Spirit will use it in their own souls to help them follow the Lord better.
Not that their spiritual state is up to your actions, in a works-righteousness way, but you want to "work with the grain" of the Spirit's work in your sons' lives, not cut against it.
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